YouTube is at war with ad-blockers, and its crackdown against these tools continues with server-side ad injection. This new method is supposed to permanently prevent ad-blockers from blocking ads.
The developer of SponsorBlock, which is a crowdsourced extension to skip ads, shared today that “YouTube is currently experimenting with server-side ad injection.”
Server-side ad injection is a technique used to deliver ads directly from the server that hosts the content, bypassing client-side mechanisms like ad-blockers.
Currently, ads on YouTube are inserted into the content on the client side (the user’s device) using scripts that can be detected and blocked by ad-blocking software.
However, with server-side ad injection, YouTube will integrate ads into the content before it reaches the user’s device, making it much more difficult for ad-blockers to distinguish and filter out the ads.
YouTube is currently experimenting with server-side ad injection. This means that the ad is being added directly into the video stream.This breaks sponsorblock since now all timestamps are offset by the ad times.
— SponsorBlock (@sponsorblock@fosstodon.org) (@SponsorBlock) June 12, 2024
While this move could be effective in blocking ad-blockers, feedback on Reddit argued that it could in fact “ruin YouTube”. Server-side ad injection could break timestamped video links and chapter markers. Plus, it makes it harder to ensure Premium viewers stay ad-free.
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The ads may see a wider rollout based on the feedback from users. YouTube didn’t immediately respond to Dexerto’s request for comment.
This move comes after YouTube reportedly started punishing ad-block users by skipping entire videos. Users said that when they tried watching videos with an ad blocker, the content either played with no sound or cut to the end. They also noticed that these problems went away when they turned off their ad blockers.
YouTube also made a post in April 2024 revealing that it is strengthening enforcement on third-party apps that let you watch without ads.
“Viewers who are using these third-party apps may experience buffering issues or see the error ‘The following content is not available on this app’ when trying to watch a video,” the company said.
